opera and concerts in london and beyond

Toby Spence

26 July 2010

Die schweigsame Frau's relative lack of success is sometimes excused as bad timing. An adaptation of Ben Jonson's play The Silent Woman, it's inoffensive comic fluff. But the fact that its librettist Stefan Zweig was Jewish ensured the opera was banned by the Nazis after just three performances in 1935.

Now it languishes in a corner of the repertoire, picked up and dusted off only occasionally. But much else that was prohibited in Germany during Hitler's reign - Mahler especially springs to mind - has recovered its position, and more. Do the reasons lie more in the work itself than the unfortunate circumstances of its debut? This new production for the Munich Opera Festival gives it a fair chance, but I can't say that I was blown away. By riddling it with ironic pastiches of his own older works, Strauss was perhaps acknowledging that he had little new to say.

Toby Spence seems to love Brel's music passionately. It's a shame he couldn't commit it all to heart though. True, there were a lot of words to learn, but it was a stretch to believe them when they were often read from a music stand. In Schubert, this wouldn't be an issue, but what Brel's songs demand most of all - above technical accuracy, native idiom or anything else - is conviction. Like a marriage proposal or a hostage statement, it's simply impossible to believe in when it's read from the page.

Spence doesn't have a flawless native accent, but I don't find that a necessity for this material. Clear diction however is vital. Perhaps an instinctive habit of his training, Spence favoured the smooth musical line over crisply-enunciated text. I hadn't expected le style, but I had at least hoped for les paroles. For the rapid patter of La valse à mille temps, it was less of a concern, but for the detailed narrative of Les bourgeois it was a serious drawback. Perhaps Brel's more lyrical, less declamatory songs like Litanies pour un retour or Je ne sais pas might have proved a better match for Spence's talents than the more well-known and verbally demanding ones that ended up on the programme.

A lot of the material sat in Spence's growly lower reaches - surely these songs are not too precious to transpose? Only Amsterdam was entirely in the more comfortable part of his range, and it was by far his most musically effective selection.

Reservations aside, Spence's deep love for Brel's music came across clearly in the songs themselves and his spoken introduction to each one. But as the Popstar to Operastar candidates are finding, enthusiasm only goes so far - training, practice and experience are required to complete the picture. Jacques Brel himself spent many nights honing his techniques in Brussels nightclubs before launching himself to success in Paris. For a first bash at singing Brel in public, Spence didn't do too badly, but he's got a long way to go.

No complaints about the wonderful idiomatic arrangements from the fourteen musicians of the Scottish Ensemble - including expert accordionist Ian Watson - which framed the songs beautifully. A first half filled with Satie, Debussy and Kurt Schwertsik's playful Satie tribute, Adieu Satie was an undemanding but delightful complement.

24 January 2010

Robert Lepage's Hollywood-themed Rake's Progress returns to Covent Garden no more impressive than it was first time round, so I won't bother describing it in any detail again. The concept - fame corrupts - is superficially interesting. But it sits awkwardly atop the Londonian specificities of the libretto, and the production remains constricted by its static tableaux, a substitute for real dramatic action.

All its wow-factor technical gimmicks can't disguise a lack of depth. Of course that's a criticism you could level at almost any Lepage venture. Intellectual profundity is neither his aim nor his result. He's the 21st century Zeffirelli - overwhelm the audience with spectacle, and hope they don't peer any deeper.

In his theatrical work, an emotional resonance compensates. It can make his best efforts utterly compelling. But in the theatre his actors pretty much devise their own performances from scratch. Not here of course. In opera you have to work with what you're given - a fixed text and performers whose training is more musical than theatrical. This production's characters and situations lack sympathy, empathy - any kind of fellow-feeling at all. And I don't blame the singers, because it was exactly the same last time round, with a different cast. The revival 'direction' seems to have done no more than reproduce the original blocking.

Ingo Metzmacher's pacing, perhaps dictated by the technical demands of the projections and sets, seemed as sluggish as Tom Ades's had in the first run. And in deference to the placement of the singers frequently miles upstage, the volume was far too low. It's telling that the haunting solo harpsichord accompaniment to the graveyard scene had more impact than any of the more complex and clever writing. The clarity of the orchestral sound was perhaps its greatest strength.

The singers seemed bathed in an air of defeat from the first note, though Rosemary Joshua's Welsh-inflected Anne Trulove battled hard to win hearts. Toby Spence undoubtedly has the voice for Tom Rakewell, but he too often lacked focus and, more surprisingly, projection, only really coming to life towards the end in the graveyard scene. Kyle Ketelsen's Nick Shadow and Patricia Bardon's Baba the Turk were decently sung, but strangely muted and anonymous presences. Even Frances McCafferty's Mother Goose - surely a gift of a role for a singer of McCafferty's vocal power and physical dimensions - lacked the expected impact.

The general impression was a lack of confidence, despite a surprisingly enthusiastic audience who laughed and gasped at the visual trickery and couldn't wait to applaud at every possible opportunity. Perhaps this production will come together more as the run progresses, but at the moment it's considerably less than the sum of its well-cast parts.

06 January 2010

There's not much happening in London right now except the white stuff, but the city springs into musical life later in the month. The final week of January in particular offers a pile up of competing attractions.

The first event in my January calendar is Elektra, in concert at the Barbican on 12 and 14 January. Valery Gergiev and the LSO are joined by a fabulous cast - Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Angela Denoke, Felicity Palmer, Matthias Goerne and Ian Storey.

Music and movies are on the menu for the Barbican's 16 January Hans Werner Henze day, followed on 17 January by the UK premiere of Phaedra.

At the Royal Festival Hall, the Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky recital on 18 January is sold out, but there may be returns on the date.

The Rake's Progress opens on 22 January at the Royal Opera House, the second run for Robert Lepage's disappointingly half-baked production. The casting is superb though - after a few dropouts the final line-up centres around Toby Spence, Rosemary Joshua, Kyle Ketelsen and Patricia Bardon, with Ingo Metzmacher conducting.

The second Covent Garden opening of the month is Jonathan Miller's Cosi Fan Tutte, conducted by Julia Jones. Yes, a lady in the pit. Sally Matthews's Fiordiligi looks like the pick of the casting.

29 January sees the first of Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven piano concerto series at the Royal Festival Hall, with the rest following over the week. Sold out, of course, but all concerts will be relayed live (and free) to the Ballroom's big screen, and recorded for later broadcast on Radio 3.

I missed the Birmingham premiere of Luke Bedford's Good Dream She Has thanks to Virgin Rail's incompetence, so I'm looking forward to hearing it in BCMG's interesting 24 January Wigmore Hall programme.

The mini-St Paul's acoustic of King's Place makes it one of my least favourite venues for vocal music, but their Vienna to Weimar Festival in the last week of January is worth checking out. The pick is a song recital on 27 January from Christian Immler and Helmut Deutsch, featuring rarely-performed works by Eisler, Gàl, Goldschmidt, Korngold, Krenek, Schreker and Zemlinsky.

And the final last week scheduling conflict comes from the Roundhouse. Their cross-platform Reverb minifest includes Joanna McGregor, the Britten Sinfonia and the OAE sharing their performing space with the less classically-inclined. A piano day on 31 January includes recitals from the Labeque sisters and Rolf Hinds. Finally - approach with caution - Charles Hazlewood rethinks the Beggar's Opera on 25 January "from songs recreated exactly as they would have sounded to groove-laden walls of psychedelia."